1. Home ›
  2. Articles ›
  3. Archive

2017

An Interview with Rev. Stephen Giannini

| The Editors

The following interview with Rev. Stephen Giannini, of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, appears in conjunction with the second annual John M. D'Arcy Program in Priestly Renewal at the McGrath Institute for Church life on Notre Dame's Cam...

Priestly Renewal at Notre Dame

| Msgr. Michael Heintz

While John Paul II is perhaps best known for his role in the collapse of the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe or for what is popularly referred to as the “Theology of the Body,” the case can be made that his Apostolic Exhorta...

Learning to Behold

| Madeline Running

Our efforts to keep up with such a fast-paced world can result in a real poverty of presence - presence to one another, presence to ourselves, and presence to God. We are tempted to live in an idealistic future, in the days of our past, ...

Summer Symposia Recap: Forming the Person as Icon

| Christopher Gruslin

In late June, the Center for Liturgy of the McGrath Institute for Church Life facilitated a summer symposium designed to creatively explore the senses of Scripture. Drawing from Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi's Catechesis of the Good ...

Formed in Wonder, Love, and Praise

| Carolyn Pirtle

If you were to survey members of a Roman Catholic congregation as they exited the church after Sunday Mass by asking what facet of the celebration made the greatest impact on them that day for good or for ill, odds are high that many of ...

Saying God Sacramentally

| Renée D. Roden

My God my bright abyss Into which all my longing will not go Once more I come to the edge of all I know And believing nothing believe in this: Christian Wiman begins his memoir of faith, My Bright Abyss, with the above poem. The short...

A Process of Evangelization in San Miguel of Guatemala

| Pierre Hegy

This essay makes a contribution to the sociology of evangelism or evangelization by first clarifying the basic concepts of proselytism, church growth, conversion, and spiritual transformation. The essay will use the example of a Guatemal...

A House Built on the Rock

| Renée D. Roden

Tucked into the eastern slope of Mount Zion is a beautiful church called St. Peter in Gallicantu (Peter at Cockcrow). It boasts beautiful, panoramic views of the city from its expansive grounds, which reveal the rolling contours of the J...

An Act of Faith: a Parent's Experience of the Atrium

| Claire Fyrqvist

My first window into Catechesis of the Good Shepherd was actually as a senior in college, through an Atrium at a Montessori school.  I was surrounded by six, seven, and eight year olds busily coloring, arranging flowers, inviting fr...

Editorial Musings: Sacramental Formation in a Secular Age

| Jessica Keating Floyd

In early 1950s Rome, two women—a biblical scholar and a Montessori-trained educator—began the great catechetical experiment known as Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. In a way, Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi’s partner...

The Ladder of Homiletics: 7 Steps to Effective Preaching, Part 1

| Guerric DeBona, OSB

Veteran homiletics teachers are asked a perennial question: what qualities make for great preaching? In 2016, the Kyle Lake Center for Effective Preaching at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary took a survey o...

Time and America's Pastime: Baseball with My Dad

| Jessica Keating Floyd

Moments before the opening pitch of a Giants-Cardinals doubleheader at the Polo Grounds in the summer of 1934, my dad remembers Jerome “Dizzy” Dean strutting up and down the length of the Giants dugout. The scrappy Cardinals ...

Cal Ripken Sr

Notre Dame Vision and the Art of Accompaniment

| Raquel Falk

As an undergraduate student imagining what life after college might hold, I joked more than once about wanting to be a professional Notre Dame Vision Mentor-in-Faith. Besides all of the laughter and play that came with the job, I discove...

Notre Dame Vision: Reality Imagined

| Samuel Bellafiore

Reality ignites our imaginations more than possibility does. We can imagine amazing things but only when we first look at what is real and in front of us. Reality reveals possibility, and that is what Notre Dame Vision did to me. My mom ...

Notre Dame Vision and the Miraculous Unlikely

| Michael D. Mesterharm

Our God is an unlikely one. I mean this not as an ontological argument (which would be above my pay grade) but as a small observation. To us, the small and the lost, the workings of our God can only rarely seem miraculous, and even when ...

Nourishing the Imagination: Science & Religion

| Jay Martin

As anyone reading this article is likely to know already, the McGrath Institute for Church Life is dedicated to nourishing the Catholic imagination and renewing the Church. The past three years of my work in the MICL have made the…

Martin Micl Crop

Trinity Sunday: A Feast Celebrating Liturgy

| Timothy P. O’Malley

This weekend in the United States, we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  For the most part, our parishes will be inundated with a series of beige homilies, which celebrate not so much the mystery of the Triune God but the mathematical puzzl...

1024px The Holy Trinity 2423988573

Nourishing the Imaginations of the Young Church

| Megan Shepherd

In seeking to capacitate young people for mature lives of faith, Notre Dame Vision offers an opportunity for young people and the adults who minister to them to encounter the fullness of Jesus Christ revealed in the Scriptures, the sacra...

Our Lady, Doer of Knots

| Allison Ciraulo

At the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I spent six months living in Argentina as volunteers at a hospice house. The hospice was run by a religious community with whom we were connected, and welcomed terminally ill men and women...

Mary Undoer Of Knots Picmonkey

God Reigns Over the Nations

| Hans Tolpingrud

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! In our daily lectionary, we are pointed to the incredible depth and range of the human experience that we find in the Psal...

Embracing Parish Life: Step 4—Getting Involved

| Katie Diltz

In thinking about writing this series for young adults on embracing parish life, I began by informally surveying young adult Catholics in my social networks. The 85 people who responded to my Google survey represent an atypical sampling ...